Regardless of whether we want to deal with the Chinese, integrate staff from India or work with various different regions in the same country, cultural habits are there to trip us up. Conventional thinking and lack of cultural intelligence constantly wreck masses of opportunities. And if you are one of those expats here in the Kingdom of Denmark, then you have bigger challenges than most. According to studies around a third of highly skilled people who move to Denmark get negatively surprised by the cultural differences. But that’s not very surprising. In the social sciences it’s nothing new that Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia are significantly culturally different from a lot of other places in the world. You can’t find a country with more trust, less religiousness, a greater emphasis on equality but also a significant tendency to social reclusiveness and much more. But why are they so different and how do you crack the code of Danish society? Dennis Nørmark has written an easy-to-read and practical book. With specific examples, funny anecdotes and thorough research, he gives us a solid tool for collaboration and co-existence. First and foremost about encounters with Danes, but he also gives examples from the whole world in this easy-to-read handbook about how we can take control of our most primitive instincts and turn cultural problems into opportunities. The book is also available in Danish.

From language classrooms to outdoor markets, the workplace is fundamental to socialisation. It is not only a site of employment where money is made and institutional roles are enacted through various forms of discourse; it is also a location where people engage in social actions and practices. The workplace is an interesting research site because of advances in communication technology, cheaper and greater options for travel, and global migration and immigration. Work now requires people to travel over great geographical distances, communicate with cultural ‘others’ located in different time zones, relocate to different regions or countries, and conduct business in online settings. The workplace is thus changing and evolving, creating new and emerging communicative contexts. This volume provides a greater understanding of workplace cultures, particularly the ways in which working in highly interconnected and multicultural societies shape language and intercultural communication. The chapters focus on critical approaches to theory and practice, in particular how practice is used to shape theory. They also question the validity and universality of existing models. Some of the predominant models in intercultural communication have been criticised for being Eurocentric or Anglocentric, and this volume proposes alternative frameworks for analysing intercultural communication in the workplace. This book was originally published as a special issue of Language and Intercultural Communication.

This book provides a framework and tools, for navigating with cultural intelligence in a Vietnamese business context. The book includes insights and knowledge about motivators and trust drivers, leading to successful partnerships, leadership, collaboration, and great teamwork in Vietnam. To support you in reaching the results you are aiming for, you will find advice from experienced Vietnam expats and a broad range of action strategies, ready to use. Providing a foundation of knowledge and understanding of ways to build fruitful relationships, collaboration, and productivity in a Vietnamese cultural context, the book is intended to serve as a handbook for anyone, who wants to do successful business in Vietnam. Project leaders, business executives at all levels, employees, and students.

Informal Networks in International Business sheds light into the complex nature of informal networks and the respective context in which they operate as well as exploring the challenges and opportunities they produce for a modern international business.

A century ago, everyone was convinced that by now we would be working a 15-hour week. It never happened. Not because of any lack of efficiency savings or streamlining. We still work for dear life. In this book, anthropologist Dennis Nørmark and philosopher Anders Fogh Jensen set out to discover how we spend our working lives. It is a journey into absurdity, where the meaning of work has disappeared and the promise of leisure has never been fulfilled. Instead, we have more rules, useless projects, forgettable HR initiatives, endless meetings and trivial PowerPoint presentations. The authors come from both sides of the political divide, but this book is not a meeting in the middle. It’s a showdown with an old-fashioned concept of work, and a blueprint for what we can do about it – as employees, as managers and as a society. It is time to think and act differently. Otherwise, we may find ourselves committing the greatest act of self-sabotage in history. We risk making a mockery of our past and being seen as a laughing stock in the future. First, we must confront one of the greatest taboos of our era: Pseudowork.

Recent neuroscience research makes it clear that human biology is cultural biology - we develop and live our lives in socially constructed worlds that vary widely in their structure values, and institutions. This integrative volume brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from the human, social, and biological sciences to explore culture, mind, and brain interactions and their impact on personal and societal issues. Contributors provide a fresh look at emerging concepts, models, and applications of the co-constitution of culture, mind, and brain. Chapters survey the latest theoretical and methodological insights alongside the challenges in this area, and describe how these new ideas are being applied in the sciences, humanities, arts, mental health, and everyday life. Readers will gain new appreciation of the ways in which our unique biology and cultural diversity shape behavior and experience, and our ongoing adaptation to a constantly changing world.